Kris Attfield is the author of three books: The Book of Finch, Letters to Whomever, The Eagle's Sore: A Novella and Pfhonge, The Inter-Continental Brink of Madness, Air Defence, Doorless Darts and Blaine Bananatree - a bunch of video games.

Saturday, October 4, 2014

I Don't Believe in Mormonism Anymore

I've had a good look through all sorts of aspects of the "reality" of the LDS church, and I don't believe in it anymore.

Growing up, I never saw the opposing viewpoint about Mormonism and I was always told the church was the one and only true and living church on earth, so I was essentially hypnotized to believe in Mormonism.

I was under the power of mind control, I think.

So:: what about all the miracles I thought I experienced? What about how I saw "evidence" of my LDS patriarchal blessing? There are explanations for that --- but is it because I really am mentally ill, or is it because of some grander cosmic or mystical political scheme that stays hidden from young and naive minds?

I never lied when I wrote my book, or at least I always tried to tell the story as I saw it. When I had the vision when I got my LDS Patriarchal Blessing --- as far as I remember that was real. The miracles I thought I experienced, I really thought I experienced.

So - am I mentally ill? Maybe. Probably.

Is there any mystical reality? Probably too.

I suppose I could say that my experiences and 'system of being' are based on both legitimate mental illness and legitimate mysticism.

The question is:: Is my mysticism really from God, or was it the Devil? Both are possibilities, and both might be true in different cases in my life as well - both God and the Devil had a role to play in everything I experienced. Of course, figuring out which experience came from which source might not be the easiest thing to figure out.

But it is clear that LDS Mormonism isn't really true -- that it is likely even demonic.

My position and thoughts and "world view" have shifted so much in at least a few ways over the years.

I was like "Church is totally true" "church not making sense" "church not true" --- the simplest way to describe it.

So, yeah, basically I've examined all kinds of facets of the LDS church and all their stuff --- and there really is nothing about them that really is reasonable to believe in.

This is a church that teaches "always do what you're told even if you think it's wrong", and then in 2nd Nephi 25:16 we learn that it's God's will that countries do horrible things to Jewish people.

What's sad is, I see the reality of the above sentence, and I wonder how anyone in my family could possibly think the church is really worthwhile - they follow Mormonism, yet don't (on the surface) accept God's behaviour.

Either the Mormon God is right or wrong. If he's right, then why aren't you obeying him to the best of your ability? And if he's wrong - then why the heck do you continue going to the temple and doing all that LDS church stuff?

Basically -- it's possible that the LDS church is a church for mentally ill people, and my family fits that bill perfectly.

But --- I mean, if you really believe in Mormonism, why aren't you doing everything you possibly can to be saved? And if you don't really believe in Mormonism -- then why are you wasting your time with that God forsaken organization?

My family is mentally ill. Some members in my family seem to think it's OK to be involved in a church that demands total obedience, and their scriptures say it's God's will that people mistreat Jewish people. And then they don't actually follow/believe those parts of it --- so really, my family is pretty brain-dead at this point I think and it's not helping me, or us, get through life.

All that money given to tithing could be more properly used to benefit your own life, or help the government through legitimate taxes -- but no, we have to waste our money and the government's money on an organization that does who knows what for mentally ill people --- actually, this organization just drives people insane (it drove me insane).

No idea. We've been wasting many years of our lives on some complete baloney, and certain members of my family just don't seem to have the brains to figure out what it's really all about.